


And God, I Know I'm One

by newredshoes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Swap, Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-10
Updated: 2009-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-13 13:41:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So Sam is willing to let his younger brother find their missing dad all by himself, but when his fiancee Jessica disappears, he'll drop his position at a D.C. law firm and hit the road to hunt again? Fine. Whatever. Dean can deal with that, just like he can deal with the strange dreams and crippling headaches. The demons, though? That part he doesn't want to do alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And God, I Know I'm One

**i. The only thing a gambler needs  
is a suitcase and a trunk**

This is Dean’s first memory: sitting strapped into his car seat, staring out the window at some barren moonscape up north. Sam using a pair of plastic scissors to cut shapes out of pieces of scrap paper. Dad up front, hunched over the wheel, bruised eyes fixed on the road. The Badlands flowing by at all different speeds. Dean shifting beneath the buckles and straps. The sky a washed-out blue out the window. Sam telling him a story.

*

New Orleans is all low-hanging fruit. If he wasn’t meeting up with Dad in two days, Dean could stay right here, lining up this perfect shot on the pool table. The kids from Tulane seem to think this place is a dive bar, and none of them, not the dumbass frat boys or the hot young things in cutoff jeans, know they’re being played.

“Dude, it isn’t rocket science.” The guy’s name is Tanner or something. He’s wearing a pastel polo shirt, khaki shorts and flip-flops. Dean stops squinting down the cue and smiles, first at Tanner and then at the girl nursing a tequila sunrise next to him.

Dean clucks his tongue. “Four years in this fine temple of learning and you haven’t figured out that pool is an art? Man, what have you been studying?” A few of the locals shake their heads or chuckle. The girl bites her straw and grins around it at him. Dean focuses on the pool table again.

“I’m pre-law,” announces Tanner, glowering as he leans on his cue.

Dean grins. “Is that right?” He pulls his cue back. He’s got solids. The balls aren’t in the easiest arrangement, but he’ll sink them no sweat and treat Tequila Sunrise to something a little better. Tanner’s friends are muttering, shaking their heads and cracking bad jokes. Dean narrows his eyes and makes his strike. The balls ricochet off the sides. “Come on, come on,” he mutters. The yellow solid creeps toward the pocket.

A drop of blood lands in the middle of the spread. Another follows, wet and almost black on the green felt. Dean goes still while the rest of the bar crowds the table and cheers. His stomach twisting, he tilts his head back and peers up past the dim lamps above them.

Sam is pinned to the ceiling, his limbs splayed and his hair plastered to his skin. An ugly vertical wound runs up his belly. Dean can hear him gasping wordlessly. The pool cue falls from his hand and clatters against the table. “Come on, man, what gives?” someone belts out.

A gunpowder tang fills his mouth, and his vision whites out.

He comes to with strains of Queen in the background. The crowd has gone quiet, watching him with awkward concern. Some dyed-red waitress is kneeling at his side. “How you doing, sweetie?” she says again. Dean tries to sit up. He feels like he’s been dipped in rubbing alcohol, shaky-cold with sweat. She accepts a glass of water from someone and pushes it into his hands. “Drink up, now, you’ll be all right.”

Dean looks up, ignoring the glass. The ceiling is empty. He pushes himself to his feet, breathing hard, and checks the felt. It’s clean.

Tanner shifts his weight on his feet, wringing his hands around the pool cue. “You, uh. You still in on this?”

Dean’s hands are shaking. Freddie Mercury wails on the jukebox. The air in the bar is too thick.

Dean feels every nerve in his body. He staggers out before he wins anything.

*

“Hey Dad — hope that thing in Fort Collins came through. Listen, um… you think if you’re in the area, we can meet up ahead of schedule? I’m in St. Louis now, call me when you get here. Right, bye.”

*

Dad doesn’t come to St. Louis. Dean keeps trying. He waits four days before he starts calling around. Caleb hasn’t heard from him; neither has Pastor Jim. Mindy doesn’t know anything, not that she would, given how poorly she and Dad parted, but gossip is gossip and news is news.

All signs point to radio silence. When Dean sleeps, he tries to stay on his stomach.

*

Nobody saw him in Grand Junction. Dad’s contact in Fort Collins is dead. Dean still calls. He gets Dad’s voicemail, but never a disconnected line.

The Impala is emptier than it’s ever been. Dean goes to bars and he asks and looks and drinks. Late-night television keeps him company most nights. He stops bringing girls back to his room.

*

Dad’s message comes while he’s in the shower. Dean listens over and over again to the EMF thrumming in the background. He traces the call to Virginia, but that’s as much as he can glean.

“Dean, something’s come up. I can’t say much, so you’re gonna have to trust me on this one. You need to be careful and watch yourself. I’m taking care of it, just go and do your job. I’m counting on you.”

“Screw this,” he mutters. It’s been three weeks now. He turns the car east.

*

The couch is a fold-out bed. If Dean has to guess, it hasn’t been used in a while. He picks his way through piles of books and sits, studying the apartment. Framed pictures hang on the wall. They plan to stay here a while, it looks like. It’s strange to see him all in one place like that.

She comes in deer-quiet on bare feet. Dean doesn’t even know she’s there until the light comes on and she’s hovering in the doorway, wide-eyed and perfectly still. She’s a hell of a catch, tall and golden-haired and a body to kill for. Dean gets to his feet, armed with his most charming smile, ready to explain why it’s no big deal that he’s on her couch.

“Jesus Christ,” she hisses. Her hand jerks up to cover her mouth.

He allows himself a chuckle. “Not this time, sweetheart.” The stone hanging off her finger flashes, and he eyes it.

“Hey, Jess? You left the—”

Sam still fills doorways. He stills grows his hair long, and he still knits his brows for a half second when he doesn’t expect something. Dean draws himself up. “Shit,” Sam says.

Dean glances at the looker. “I think I liked hers better.”

The leggy blonde swallows, but doesn’t take her eyes off Dean. “Sam, you know this guy?”

“Course he does,” Dean interjects. “Come on, Sam, is that any way to greet your dysfunctional little brother?”

*

“Are you kidding me?” Sam hugs his elbows. “Why would he come here?”

“Because he has before, okay?” Sam is totally intact and totally, infuriatingly himself. Dean glares at him. “He’d swing by Stanford and he made it up here when he found out you’d moved. I thought maybe you two were together, so I came.”

“What?” Sam frowns. “You hit your head or something? The last I heard from Dad, he was showing me the door in no uncertain terms.” He crosses his arms. “I’ve done just fine without him.”

“Yeah,” snorts Dean. “You have. But you’re not hearing me, Sam. Dad’s _missing._ We have to find him.”

“What’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about?” Sam leans against the fire escape railing. “You don’t need my help for this, Dean. You’re the hunter, not me.”

“Aw, don’t get all bashful on me just ‘cause you’ve been playing lawyer for three years.”

Sam shakes his head. “You’re not goading me into this. Not to mention you’re delusional if you think he’d ever change him mind about me.”

The line of Dean’s mouth sours. “Maybe if you’d tried just a little harder to stay—”

“Dean, look—”

“No.” He throws up his hands. “Forget it. That’s not why I’m here. I don’t care about your daddy issues. I just think you owe it to me to help make sure he’s okay. Three years of you at Stanford buys me that much, right?”

Sam watches him pace, his expression muted. “I never wanted this, Dean.”

“You could have fooled me,” he snaps. “Are you done, or are you gonna help me?”

*

“Don’t worry,” Dean tells Jess with a smile. “I won’t keep your boy toy too long.”

Jess accepts a kiss on the cheek from Sam. “Be careful,” she says, giving Dean a wary look.

“It’s just Norfolk,” Sam laughs. Dean gives up on pleasing Sam’s future life partner and steers him toward the Impala. Jess watches them go from the front step.

“Your girl there’s pretty clingy,” Dean remarks as he opens the door.

“She’s never been this far east before. We don’t know anybody yet.” Sam slouches into the passenger seat. He has to adjust himself to fit his knees below the dash.

Dean leans forward and settles behind the wheel. “So, California girl, following her man out to the District. That’s classic, man.” He pushes the key into the ignition and glances at Sam. “She a lawyer too? ‘Scuse me.” He holds up one hand, miming concern. “Is she clerking for somebody? That’s what you do, right?”

Sam hasn’t changed up the body language for _irritated_ either. “She’s an English major, actually. She’s still thinking about grad school.”

Dean laughs. “Oh, I see. Nice.”

Sam frowns. “Dude, what’s your problem?”

“Nothing, nothing.” He looks back at the apartment building. Jess is still watching them as they pull away. “She know _anything_ about you?”

“Is there a reason you’re fixating on this?”

Dean chuckles. “That’s what I thought.” He punches the power button on the tape deck to preempt more bitching. The opening bars of “Back in Black” hum in the dash. Sam groans.

“Oh my God, I’m in the fucking Delorean.”

Dean grins, and guns the engine.

*

Dad was hunting a ghost in Norfolk, some Confederate gun-runner playing hell with the naval shipyard. The trail couldn’t be clearer if it had been lined with roadside flares. Sam falls right back into the hunt. It’s a comforting thought, that Sam was just away, and that he’s home now. Dean doesn’t pick fights or anything. Hell, they even find a witness and tag-team interview him in perfect sync. For the first time in weeks, Dean’s in a solid place. Sam isn’t gone or hurt or raging at his family, he’s at Dean’s back, telling Pat Martin that they’re just fact-checking Mr. Valory’s article for _Stars and Farbs Monthly._ (“What the hell is a farb?” asks Dean as they leave the diner. Sam shrugs and mutters something about Civil War reenactors and Dean almost loses it on the sidewalk.)

It doesn’t last. This is what comes of getting comfortable. The police barge in and Sam lets himself get arrested so Dean can check out the Daughters of the Confederacy monument and when Dean fakes the dispatch call and meets up with him at a dock north of the city, Sam’s face is tight and resigned. “There’s nothing here, Dean,” he says, looking out at the water.

Dean’s grin refuses to falter. “What are you talking about? Ghost’s cornered, we’ve almost got the son of a bitch.”

“There’s a case,” Sam allows. “But Dad’s long gone.” He reaches into his jacket and pulls out Dad’s journal. Dean stares. “Take it,” Sam says softly.

“I don’t understand,” Dean says. As soon as he says it he feels stupid.

Sam’s phone goes off. He knits his brow, apologetic, and Dean takes the journal. He thumbs the pages numbly as Sam takes the call.

“Yeah,” Sam says, his tone soothing. “Hey, no, we’re fine. You doing okay?” Jessica’s voice comes muffled through the earpiece. Sam frowns, watching Dean. “Again?”

Dean’s fingers find a post-it note at an angle near the back. Something tightens in his chest again. Coordinates. It’s south of here, but that’s all he can make out at the moment.

“No, it’s cool. Yeah.” Sam turns and paces off to comfort Jess. Dean leans against the car, his arms heavy.

“Whoa, stay calm. Jess — it’s okay. Don’t worry.” Sam checks his wristwatch. “I’ll be back soon.”

Dean looks up at Sam like he’s just been shot.

*

Sam glances sidelong from the passenger seat. “Dude. Stop it.”

“What?” Dean grips the wheel too tightly, the journal perched between the front seats.

Sam raps the dash with a knuckle. “This is Bob Seger. You’re sulking.”

He snorts. “Seriously? ‘Sulking,’ that’s the word you pick?”

“Look,” Sam says, mustering some conviction. “He’ll turn up.”

The engine guns a little harder down the highway. “Not ‘we’ll find him’?”

“Jesus, Dean—”

“Nah, I get it.” The strains of “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” issue gamely from the speakers. “No worries, Sam, you’ve got your lonely fiancée to get back to.”

Sam sits back and sets his eyes straight ahead. They drive in silence for three tracks, Virginia streaming past them just beyond the highbeams.

“She does look like a hell of a lay,” says Dean out of nowhere.

Sam glares at him. “Excuse me?”

“What?” Dean shrugs, his shoulders stiff. “Come on, there’s gotta be something that makes her more worth worrying about than your family.” The collar of his jacket is stiff as a dog’s hackles. “I can’t say I get it, though. Hell, Dad’s been missing a month, Sam, and you could give a rat’s ass. But he’s not dead, because he’s getting my messages and he’s erasing them. Why would he do that? I don’t know how many voicemails I’ve left for him but his box never fills up.” His voice rises. “And all you care about is _Jessica._ I know being a lawyer makes you an asshole, but I didn’t think you’d take to it so well.”

“Dean,” he says, fighting to keep his temper down, “watch the road.”

“I am!” he snarls. “We’re going the wrong way. Dad is south. Those coordinates are south.”

“Then pull over.”

Dean frowns. “What?”

Sam gestures. “Pull over, man. Dude, I’m not new at this. I’ll hitch back to D.C. and you can go find him.”

Dean stares at him. “I’m not doing that,” he says, and swallows.

Sam knits his brow. “You don’t really think he’d want me to be the one who found him, do you?”

Dean looks at him for a moment more, then clenches his jaw and looks back at the road. The car is quiet again. The tape winds to the end of its spool. An oncoming car doesn’t turn its brights off. Dean turns aside. The light only intensifies. Dean’s center of balance evaporates. His head lolls back.

“Dean?”

Sam’s empty apartment. The sound of something dripping. The air is still, and tastes combustible. Sam overhead, his opened belly quivering.

“Jesus, Dean! Shit!”

The car veers off to the right; Sam grabs the wheel keep it from plowing into a ditch. “The brakes! The brakes!” he yells. Dean pitches against him, knocking him back. Sam shoves him off, slides down the front seat and kicks Dean's legs aside to slam on the brake himself. The Impala lurches to a stop on the shoulder. Both Sam and Dean are gasping for breath.

“What the hell was that?” Sam shouts, pulling Dean upright and putting his hands over his face and neck. Dean’s pupils are migraine-wide.

“Oh God,” he breathes. “Oh God. Oh my God.”

“Dean, hey—hey, are you okay?”

Dean grasps for the wheel with one hand, and Sam’s arm with the other. “We’ve got to go,” he croaks. “Fuck, Sam, we’ve got to go.”

*

Dean is first up the stairs. “Open the damn door,” he grunts, reaching into his waistband.

“Are you high?” Sam hisses. “People will see you.”

“Take yours out too,” Dean says, holding up his gun. “Open the door.”

“No. Jess is in there, she’ll flip.”

“Sam. You have been off this job and now I am telling you to fucking cover me, all right?” He glares at Sam with all the ferocity of an adult man. Sam swallows, slips the key into the lock, and pulls out his Beretta.

No one greets them as they slip inside the apartment. They pick their way through the boxes, all undisturbed. A curtain flutters from the short inches of open window by the living room. Dean stops and holds up a hand.

He glances at Sam and taps his nose. The smell of sulfur wafts in and out like something in the oven. Sam’s eyes go wide and he pushes past Dean, long legs bearing him away.

*

She’s just gone.

No blood, no struggle, no trace. Nothing.

She’s just gone.

*

They cross thirty-two states over the course of the summer. Jess and Dad aren’t in any of them, but a lot of other things are.

Dean keeps dreaming. Sam never learns what they’re about, and whether they’re real or not, Dean doesn’t dig too deep. None of them are Sam pinned bloody to the ceiling. They’ve got other things to worry about.

It takes them a while to get comfortable again. Sam was with them longer than he wasn’t, but that he left all still sticks in Dean’s craw. Sam doesn’t talk about finding Dad much. Dean has no leads when it comes to Jess. It’s a 3,000-mile haystack. The hunts, at least, are something to do while they wait.

*

“We should go to Lawrence,” Dean announces at an all-night flapjack joint in Plano, Texas. Sam blinks at him, his cheek stuffed full of pancake, and swallows.

“No,” he says.

Dean leans forward. “Why not?”

“Why should we?” Sam cuts another pancake with the side of his fork. “What could we possibly find there?”

“I don’t know — Dad, maybe?”

Sam snorts.

“Look,” Dean presses. “A demon killed Mom. A demon took Jessica.”

Sam looks at him. “There’s a lot of demons out there, Dean.”

“In Hell, sure. Not above ground. Maybe it’s the same one.” Dean props his arms on the table. “Come on, man, you got any other leads? It can’t be any more wrong than the other places we’ve been.”

“I don’t want to go back to Lawrence,” Sam says, pushing his plate away.

Dean drops his eyes. He picks at his nails for a moment. “I really think we should,” he says softly.

“What, for old time’s sake?”

Dean plays his hand. “It’s what I’ve been dreaming about.” He hasn’t, not really, but it gets Sam’s attention. “I found out there’s a psychic there. I thought maybe she could help.”

“All right,” says Sam, knitting his brow. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

“Dad thinks she’s good,” he says, and pulls the journal from his jacket. He opens it to the first page and slides it across the table. “I think that’s a good endorsement.”

The entry is dated November of ‘82. _I went to Missouri, and I learned the truth._

*

They roll into Lawrence late the afternoon. It’s a college town and in August it’s utterly lifeless. “You think our old house is still here?” Dean asks as they search for parking near the campus.

Sam shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Dean glances at him. “You still don’t want to see the place? The town, I mean.”

“No, man, it’s cool.” He straightens in the passenger seat. “I’ll get us a room and call this psychic, see when she’ll see us.”

Sam tries hard not to look out the windows, but Dean catches him stealing glances. His expression, even for Dean, is impossible to read.

*

Someone is living in their old house. It looks like it does in the fews pictures Dad kept. A little boy is running through a sprinkler on the front lawn. A woman sits on the porch. She isn’t watching the kid: her face is lined and wan.

Dean considers pulling up, but his foot never comes off the gas. He gets it now, with Sam. It does kind of give him the creeps, now that he thinks about it.

It’s a college town. There are bars open. He needs the drink.

*

Her name is Meg, and she doesn’t touch him. All that coyness and control drives him absolutely wild.

“So, Dean, you’re a hometown boy?” Her lips are full and wet off her third bottle.

He chuckles, and settles onto his forearms. “Kinda. We moved away when I was little. This just sort of a trip down memory lane.”

One eyebrow arcs up, disappearing beneath shaggy blonde bangs. “You going to be on this nostalgia trip long?”

Dean crooks a smile. “Nah, it’s my brother who likes to wallow. Me, I’m all about new experiences.”

“How about that.” Meg grins. “Well hey, my friends and I are throwing this party Thursday night. Can I count on you to stick around and show up?”

He takes in the wicked curve of her mouth. “Definitely,” he says. The neon lights gleam in Meg’s dark eyes.

*

Missouri’s no-nonsense demeanor slips the instant she touches Dean’s hand. “Oh,” she says, and her voice goes slightly high for a second.

He frowns, and resists the urge to squirm away. “What?”

She looks from brother to brother. “Both missing at the same time?” she says, changing her mind before she speaks. “Don’t you boys stay torn in two about this.”

“Do you know something?” Dean doesn’t try to remove his hand from hers now. “Have you talked to our dad?”

“I haven’t,” she says, with downcast eyes. “It’s been years and years since I heard from your father.” She pats Dean’s hand one more time and lets go. “And before you go asking, Sam Winchester, I am not a ham radio. I can’t find your fiancée for you either.” She plants her feet and looks up at them. “Now, exactly how long are you planning on throwing questions at me?”

“Well,” says Sam, “we’ve kind of got a laundry list…”

Missouri thins her lips. She flips the cardboard sign hanging in the front window: _Closed._

*

“You’re thinking about her,” Missouri says, as Dean tries to trace how exactly he got enlisted into chop onions.

“Thinking about who?”

She gives him a _Don’t fool with me, boy_ look. “That Meg lady. You stay away from her. She is bad news for you and your family.”

Dean’s mouth twists. “What, is there a rash I should know about?”

He never sees the spoon coming.

“You can take me seriously or you can find out for yourself,” she snaps.

*

“You know,” Missouri says, settling back in her wicker chair, “I remember when your father brought you here, the very first time. There he was, all shipwrecked with two babies in tow. And Sam, you just stuck by that little squalling bundle of blankets like there was no tomorrow. Dean wouldn’t calm for me when I held him, but for you? He just went quiet like that.”

“Yeah?” Sam’s smile is fleeting, but present. “Wish he’d kept it up.”

“Don’t use those words in my house,” Missouri warns before Dean can open his mouth. She threads her fingers together. “Though I do suppose profanity’s only appropriate if you want me to tell you about demons.”

“Yeah,” says Dean, scooting forward. “What do you know?”

“Plenty. I wish I didn’t.” She shakes her head. “They’ve been picking up. I keep track of them best I can, even if I don’t get out very much. Something’s brewing, and I don’t like the smell of it. First things first, though: you boys know how to protect yourselves?”

Sam’s phone rings. Dean looks at him. “You gonna get that?”

Sam fumbles for it and checks the display. “We know someone in Nebraska?”

“Why don’t you pick that up.” Missouri pats Dean’s hand. “Dean and I have some talking to do.”

Sam nods and gets to his feet, with a brief look of puzzlement at Dean. He flips the phone open and flinches at the burst of static. “Hello?”

Missouri leans forward. “Let’s you and I discuss some other business later,” she says, her voice low.

“When?” Dean replies, hushed.

Sam plugs his other ear and presses the receiver closer. The volume on the headpiece is loud: whoever’s on the other end of the line is weeping. “Hello?” he repeats.

 _“Sam?”_

Both Dean and Missouri look up. Sam goes stock-still. “Jess?”

 _“Oh God, Sam, thank God, thank God.”_

He turns so he’s facing the others: his eyes are huge. “Jess, where are you? Are you hurt?” Dean gets to his feet.

 _“I’m… I don’t know. It’s this payphone at some truck stop. I don’t know how I got here.”_

Sam grabs at his hair. “Look. Look, just hold on, okay? I can find you, just stay there. Can you do that for me?”

 _“It’s been awful,”_ Jess sobs, and the hum of static spikes. _“Please. Just—please let me—”_

The line cuts out. “Jess!” Sam shouts. “Jess!”

“What?” says Dean. “What happened?”

“She’s in Nebraska somewhere,” Sam babbles, frantic. “We have to go find her. Something’s happened. I need a reverse phone lookup. Who do we know in Nebraska?”

Missouri interrupts. “Why did you lose the call?”

Sam stops. “I don’t know,” he says, and in the weeks they’ve been together again Dean’s never seen him so young.

 

 **ii. It’s one foot on the platform and  
the other foot on the train**

The plume of smoke rises tall against a muddy dawn. “Jesus Christ,” Dean breathes. Nebraska stretches flat as a place setting in all directions, the inky column the only landmark against an endless field. When they finally reach the site, it’s cordoned off. One lone police car sits at the edge of the cracked concrete parking lot. Two officers share a tall thermos of coffee back and forth. The one leaning against the passenger door straightens and moves to intercept the Impala as it pulls in.

One look tells Dean that Sam is going to be no help. He rolls down the window and immediately chokes on the smell of the air. “What happened here?” he asks. Sam stares at the ruins, his jaw tight. The officer bends close.

“Sir, I have to ask that you keep moving. We’ve got the situation under control.”

Dean glances at the other officer, who’s speaking into a radio. “Any idea where we can get some gas?”

The policeman points. “Town’s eleven miles that way. You can fill up there.”

Dean thanks him and rolls up the window. He looks at Sam as they pull away from the fill station. “You smell that?”

“Sulfur,” Sam says tightly.

At the edge of the asphalt, a telephone booth stands by itself, the receiver hanging from its metal cord, the whole thing perfectly intact.

*

A bell rings as they walk into the one restaurant on Main Street. It seems to be the social nexus of town: a crowd of locals clusters around a table near the front door. “Lord’s honest truth, I saw them with my own two eyes, walking back from their car,” declares a sturdy woman with short, sensible hair. She accepts coffee from the harried waitress, who ignores Sam and Dean and heads back toward the kitchen. “He still can’t see a damn thing, bless him, but he’s alive,” the woman continues. “Doctors can’t find a thing wrong with him.”

“Hospital must have screwed up somehow,” scoffs a grizzled man in a John Deere hat. “What’re you gonna trust those doctors in Lincoln for anyway?”

“Docs sure didn’t help him, I’ll say that right now,” another woman pipes up. “Roy had something terrible wrong with him. It’s God’s work, every last inch.”

“Guess that job of his paid off, didn’t it?” one man says ruefully. A few chuckle into their mugs. Others nod and offer their own amens.

Dean elbows Sam, grabs two menus and walks past the _Please Wait to Be Seated_ sign up front. The lone waitress bustles up to their table, carrying her twin pots of coffee like revolvers. “What can I get for you boys?” Dean gets the special, which so far as he can tell is a bottomless pile of hash browns, sausage and scrambled eggs, named after the local high school football team’s mascot. Sam orders pancakes without looking away from his hands.

Dean holds out both menus. “Sounds like you folks are having an exciting day,” he remarks.

The waitress sighs. “Looks like. The Arco out on 74 blew up, and that tent preacher doesn’t seem to have cancer anymore. We never get two pieces of news like that at once. Town’s just not big enough.”

“Good things come to good people,” announces the short-haired woman to the crowd. “Say what you like about her, but she’s been rewarded, and bless her for it.”

“They releasing him soon, then?” the cynic in the John Deere hat grunts.

“Oh, he’s home. He checked himself out.” She sips her coffee. “Sue-Ann said she’s say when they could take visitors.”

Dean listens for a few minutes more, then glances back at Sam. “Does any of this sound weird to you?”

Sam glowers at him. “Dean, stop.”

He frowns. “What?”

Sam shakes his head. “We don’t have time to look into a case.”

“You really think Jessica’s still here?” Dean leans closer. “Come on, this could be a lead staring us right in the face. We haven’t had squat all summer, and now a gas station blows up for no good reason _and_ a guy gets cured of cancer, in the same place you traced her last call? Tell me that’s not weird.” Sam looks away. “Come on,” Dean wheedles. “You really think this place is big enough for more than one player?”

Sam leans back in the booth. “Fine. This couple. How are we going to talk to them?”

*

Sue-Ann Le Grange is a beautiful middle-aged woman with a wardrobe stalled at 1982. She frowns up at the fake policy document. “We just got out of the hospital yesterday,” she says, baffled but polite. “They said insurance wouldn’t be by for some time.”

“We were already in Broken Bow,” says Sam smoothly. “They thought they’d just send us over while we were close.” He wears his suit well. Dean tries not to fiddle with the buttons at his wrist.

“Oh,” says Sue-Ann, and glances over her shoulder. After a moment, she steps back and opens the front door all the way. “Well, Mr. Bonham, Mr. Jones. Please, come in.”

The house is old, and frontier-nice. The décor is a mixture of turn-of-the-century Sears-Roebuck furniture and religious art. Sue-Ann seats them on a couch in a parlor; an old upright piano stands against the wall, crowded with framed photographs. “Roy’s resting,” she says, crossing her ankles and folding her hands.

“We wouldn’t want to disturb him,” says Dean. “We can come back again, if there’s a more convenient time. We just wanted to ask a few questions.” She nods at him, then perches on her chair, patient and well-mannered.

“Now, Mrs. Le Grange,” begins Sam.

“Sue-Ann, please,” she says, with her preacher’s wife smile. Sam dips his head.

“Sue-Ann, your husband was diagnosed with a tumor on his optic nerve one month ago.”

She nods. “That’s right. Roy woke up stone blind one day. He’d been feeling fine beforehand. There was…” Her eyes drift. “No warning.”

Dean shifts on the cushion, and tries to avoid being swallowed. “What happened after that?”

“Well,” Sue-Ann says, and her voice hitches a little, but she remains composed. “The oncologists said it was too far along for them to help. They told us we should move Roy into hospice care, but Roy wouldn’t have any of it.” She clasps her hands. “He fell into a coma. That was two weeks ago. But we were praying, both of us. He told me…” She takes a deep breath, and then, inexplicably, smiles again. “He said God would send us an answer, either way, and one way or another, we shouldn’t worry.” Her eyes shine. “He woke up early on Thursday morning, before the sun was even up. I came back and there he was, sitting up and calling for me.”

Something in the story snags. Dean furrows his brow. “Came back?”

She lifts her chin. “I was praying.”

They stay for twenty more minutes, but Sue-Ann keeps her cards close, and they don’t learn much else. She sees them to the door, and Sam shakes her hand. Sue-Ann looks brittle for someone whose husband has come back from the brink. Her hand folds like a bird’s wing inside Dean’s as she thanks him.

The vision goes off in his head like a bomb. He feels it, sees it, tastes it — it’s sulfur and ragged crying and soft lips and dirt under his nails. His knees buckle. He’s aware of Sam catching him, and Sue-Ann gasping and trying to help, but the next he knows he’s in the back seat of the Impala, and then he just fades out into something else.

* * *

All her adult life, she’d had faith and she’d had him. College was at a state school, and she drank of ideas heady as stolen wine. But she came back home and the good word found her, and a husband, and though they were never blessed with children, she knew happiness.

She loved Roy more than prayers could forgive. They lived on their own land, and Roy preached in the field, close to God and close to Creation. Sue-Ann stood by him and worked and helped his church grow, until people were coming from two hours away, and how did the naysayers like that? His cancer was caught on a Friday; that Sunday, he led his flock, and the tent was packed. It never left her, the quiet and the weeping and the praises they all raised up to heaven for him.

Ten days he didn’t wake. She tried desperately to feel the angels propping her up, but her only answer was the wind, and the dull hue of the baked prairie. Sue-Ann had never spoken in tongues, but she began to lose certainty of the things she was saying. She wandered through their fields, through the still, silent house, alone with the great hush of a Name read but not spoken.

In the house, Roy wasted. The tent may not have been abandoned by God yet. Sue-Ann sank into one of the folding chairs, white and flimsy amid the speakers and the tarp. Without the fans on, the space was thick and still. She stared at the empty pulpit, her cheeks dry and her lips moving for hours on end.

Her breath caught in her throat when the girl appeared kneeling before her.

“You’re troubled,” the girl said, her hand warm on Sue-Ann’s knee.

Sue-Ann gasped. “How did you get in?”

The girl’s eyes were dark and concerned. “I heard you,” she said, and reached for Sue-Ann’s hand. “He’s going to die, you know.”

“Who are you?” she snarled. “Tell me at once or I’ll call the police!”

“Shh, shh shh.” The girl slid into the seat next to her. “He doesn’t have to. There are ways of saving him.”

Sue-Ann didn’t cry in front of people. Sobs clawed at her from under her ribs. “Who are you?” she whimpered, hating herself for it.

The girl stroked her hair. “An intercessor. Shh.” She drew Sue-Ann to her breast, and Sue-Ann pressed her cheek against that leather jacket, staring straight ahead. “You love him so much, don’t you,” murmured the girl, her fingers loosing Sue-Ann’s tight bun. “I know you’d do anything for him. Why would you stop for him now?”

“I wouldn’t,” she whispered. She felt the girl’s collarbone against her cheek; her knuckles brushed a taut stomach as she fisted her thin t-shirt.

“That’s right,” the girl said, and combed her fingers through Sue-Ann’s undone tresses. The tips of them brushed against a hot neck. “Love isn’t about putting on the brakes.”

Sue-Ann inhaled, hoping for a telltale hint of myrrh, or honey. The girl smelled like leather jacket, and the wind, and the baking prairie grass. “What can I do?” she asked, a stillness welling up inside her.

The girl’s hands traced under her jaw, and she tipped her chin so that their eyes met. “Listen close, Sue-Ann. I know someone who can help you. I’m going to give you a list.”

*

She walked on the gravel in bare feet. The roadside gave no shelter but the tall weeds. Sue-Ann drew her cardigan close to her shoulders and knelt at the center of the crossroads. She tore her nails digging, but the hole opened up, and she set the cookie tin at the bottom. The contents ran like a litany in her head. God forgive her so much, but she’d used a picture from a church bulletin inside.

“What have you learned, Dorothy?”

Sue-Ann jerked back a pace, and turned. A woman she didn’t recognize stood on the other side of the buried box, wearing nothing but a silky black negligee. She smiled, and took slow, deliberate steps toward her. “It’s that if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with!” The woman stopped, and eyed Sue-Ann up and down. “Hello there, preacher’s wife,” she purred. “I like what you’ve done with your hair. Even with dear Mr. Le Grange dying back home, you do make certain you’re presentable.”

Sue-Ann swallowed, and balled her fists. “You can help me,” she said, forcing the tremble out of her voice.

The woman’s eyes flooded red as she grinned. “And straight to the point.” The dark silk rustled and bunched across her hips. “It’s true. I can. It depends, though.”

“On what?”

The woman laughed, and circled behind her. Sue-Ann tracked her with her eyes. “Whether you’re willing to give me what I want. But let’s keep this transparent. Tell me, sugar, what it is you want.”

Sue-Ann glared after her. “You know. I don’t know how, but you know.”

“True.” The woman came around and faced her again. “Humor me. We need to have a record of this, after all.”

She took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. “I want my husband.”

One of the woman’s perfectly tweezed eyebrow arced up. “You’ve got him, all laid out in your bed.”

“You know what I mean.” Sue-Ann fingered her wedding ring. “I want him to live. I want him to be healed.”

The woman leveled a canny look at her. “Isn’t that going against God’s will, Sue-Ann? Don’t you think that when a man’s time comes, he should joyously go and meet his maker?”

“It’s not his time,” she said fiercely. Then, more quietly, she added, “I can’t live without him.”

The woman closed the space between them, her mouth perilously close. “Yes you can. But you don’t want to play at being a widow in a tiny town like this. And what good is the Church of Roy Le Grange without its star attraction?” She smirked. “But you, I see you’re a regular rock of the community. All right.”

Sue-Ann looked at her. “All right what?”

She tilted forward, her breasts straining against the negligee. “Here are my terms. I’ll make him better. Nobody would ever know he had a thing wrong with him. Roy’ll go back to being healthy as an ox. But in ten years, you’re coming with me. No backing out, no outs period.” She flashed a smile, brilliant under the crescent moon. “What do you say?”

Sue-Ann swallowed. “How?”

The woman’s lips curled. “How what?”

“How do I say yes?”

The woman reached out and rested her hands on Sue-Ann’s hips, her bare legs pressed against her denim skirt. “I could let him have his eyes too, you know,” she sighed, breath skimming hot across Sue-Ann’s jaw. “If you’d just meet me in eight. One year for each, preacher’s wife. What do you say? Is he worth that much to you?” Sue-Ann stiffened. The woman waited, then laughed softly. “I didn’t think so.” Her fingers played over Sue-Ann’s waist. “Well?” she whispered. “What are you waiting for? Don’t feel bad, sugar, you’ve always wanted to try it anyway.”

* * *

“Bob Johnson,” Dean mumbles, his eyelids heavy. He squints down his chest, which is pressed close with blankets. “You tucked me in?”

Sam hovers over his bed, frowning at him. “Dude, what happened back there? You okay?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, before letting his head drop back against the pillow. “Like I got run over by a semi.”

Sam brings him water and Advil unprompted. “You were out, buddy. You’ve been asleep since four.”

“God, thank you.” Dean drains the glass. “Sam, I don’t think we can help Sue-Ann.”

Sam watches him carefully. “Why’s that?”

He closes his eyes. “It’s a crossroads demon. Goddamn unbreakable contract.”

Sam stares for a moment. “You think you’ll be okay for a few hours?” he asks, urgent.

Dean opens his eyes to frown at him. “What? Why?”

His brother is already picking up his jacket. “I need to find a library.”

Dean sighs and rolls face first into the pillow. “Typical.”

“Call my cell if you need something!”

The door shuts quickly behind him.

*

It’s not a long walk from the hotel to the fields. Nebraska is as empty as any medieval fief, and if the two cowpaths he finds crossing the expanse of corn are spindly and crooked, he’s sure this demon has made due with less. The dirt is loose and soft beneath his hands; half an hour and his work is done.

“Well, well, Sam Winchester,” coos a voice behind him. “So good to see you’re back in the business. Let me tell you, we’ve missed you out here.” He turns: the demon is tall, with curly black hair and full lips, just familiar enough. She smiles knowingly, watching for a flinch. “People don’t usually call me just to chat. What brings a boy like you to a place like this?”

Sam schools his face. “I need information,” he says, keeping his voice steady.

“Talk is cheap,” rejoins the demon. She tilts her head. “What do you need so bad that you’ll sell for it?”

He doesn’t look away. “I’ve got a few things on my mind.”

“So I’ve noticed.” She bites her lower lip, teeth gleaming. “You want to know where your father is. That’s your very first question, and you hate yourself for it. Mm, Samuel, do tell me more.” When he doesn’t answer, she closes the distance between them, and lifts herself on her toes to reach his ear. “We know where is he, by the way. And what he’s doing without you and Dean.”

Sam escapes, taking careful steps backward. “I’m not worried about my dad,” he lies. “He can take care of himself.”

“Can he?” The demon smiles. “We’ll see.” She matches him, step for step—until she stops, her expression ugly. “Sam,” she growls. She pushes forward against thin air. “Sam, what did you do?”

Sam takes another pace back. Salt glimmers on the ground, the devil’s trap weaving in and out of the rows of corn. “Talk is cheap. So’s freedom.” He slips both hands in his pockets. “I’m a believer in equal exchange rates.”

The crossroads demon glares daggers at him. “This is a foolish thing you’re doing.”

He shrugs. “Maybe. But I’m tired of waiting for answers.” He plants his feet. “What do you know about Jessica Moore?”

The demon laughs, a snap of amusement in the too-quiet field. “Is this what you summoned me for? Demonic GPS?”

He goes toe to toe with the line. “A demon took her and a demon brought her here and blew up that fill station. Why? Where is she now?”

The demon crosses her arms. The bottom of her lacy nightgown flutters in a breeze. “Law school made no impression, Sam,” she sighs. “You’re asking all the wrong questions.”

“Am I?” He cocks an eyebrow. “We can wait around all night while I think up the right ones.”

“Sammy, they didn’t tell me you were quite this adorable.” She simpers. “Should you really be out here all by yourself?”

He narrows his eyes. “I’m laughing on the inside.”

The demon grins. “I wasn’t making a joke.”

*

Dean comes to on his back, something hot and living hovering over him. “You bailed on me back in Lawrence, Dean,” a girl whispers, and nips at his ear. “A real man would have called if he didn’t want to see me again.”

Meg’s arms and legs are planted firmly on either side of him. When she holds him down, he feels the springs of the mattress bite into his muscles. Other things assault him too: glimpses of dead hunters, black smoke and bars. “What the hell,” he gasps. “Bitch, get off me!”

“Ah ah ah ah.” She grabs his jaw in one hand and forces him to look at her. Her fingers dig into his cheeks. “No need to get nasty, Dean. I’m only going to hurt you if you ask for it. You’re into that sometimes, aren’t you?”

“The hell are you doing here?” He thrashes ineffectually. “What do you want from me?”

“You know what your failing is? You don’t believe in foreplay.” She lowers herself so she straddles his waist, her weight heavy on his hips. He tries to buck, but she just smiles. “Always want to charge right in, don’t we.”

His eyes roll wildly trying to see around her. “Where’s Sam? What’ve you done with him?” For a moment, he searches past her, to the ceiling. Meg chuckles.

“Sammy left of his own accord. He’s gone to try and ask a friend of mine some questions. That’s all right. I was hoping we could get a little alone-time, just you and me.” Her lips curl. “You two are hunting the wrong thing, if you ask me.”

“Oh yeah?” he spits, breathing hard. “What’s that?”

She runs her eyes over his body, casual and calm. “You should give up on Sue-Ann Le Grange. She’s a done deal. Let her have her ten years. You’ve got other fish to fry.”

“What is this, a threat?” He finally manages a sneer of his own. “You couldn’t just leave a horse head on my pillow?”

“Not a threat. Advice.” She leans close, so her short, choppy haircut brushes against his face. “I’m trying to help you, Dean. You’ve got work to do.”

*

“You think your job is so simple, don’t you.” The crossroads demon holds court in the center of the sigil. “You’re on this like a pair of Keystone Cops.”

Sam prowls the perimeter. “Is that right?”

“Do you go after Leviathan with a flashlight and a pair of scuba fins? Sam, I can help you.”

“Yeah?” He reaches into an inside pocket, and retrieves a rosary and a folded piece of paper. “Tell me how that is.”

The demon eyes the paper in his hand. “What is that?”

Sam pauses, and lets the silence speak for itself. “I think you mentioned something about helping me.”

The demon licks her lips. “You think this is just a missing person search with some ghosts and ghouls thrown in for icing. You’re not asking the right questions.”

He lifts his eyebrows. “Yeah, you said that already. Old news gets you nothing.”

“No more until you back off with that exorcism in your hand.” She hisses impatiently. “We had an arrangement.”

“Really?” He makes a show of studying the text. “I believe I said I would let you go if you answered my questions. So far you’ve just given me sass, and we didn’t actually agree on anything.”

“I can be reasonable. It’s what I do, isn’t it?” When she flashes that smile, he knows he’s got her. He spreads his arms.

“Fine. Let’s hear it.”

She looks up at him through endless eyelashes. “You wouldn’t have to, if you could just get the truth out of Dean.”

Sam freezes. “What?”

*

“They scare you, don’t they?” Meg murmurs. “The dreams and visions. They’re not your style, I can tell.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean grunts.

“No?” She rakes her fingers through his hair. “I’m disappointed, I have to say. You’re lying to me like an amateur. It’s discourteous, don’t you think? Show a demon a little respect.”

“I get it why you’re here now,” he says, crooking a smile. “You need Hell to freeze over. Sorry, lady, but I’m not in the A/C business.”

Meg laughs. “That’s not a bad theory, Sherlock. But here’s a free bit of advice: you need me.”

He lifts both eyebrows. “Like a hole in the head, sure.”

“Things are changing, Dean.” She sits back and traces one hand down his torso and over his thigh. “Do we need to talk about your changing body? I’m guessing Daddy never sat you down for that one like he should have.”

He grinds his teeth. “Aw, come on, isn’t this uncomfortable enough without bringing my dad into the mix?”

Meg’s eyes glint, even in the shadow of the unlit room. “He sure hasn’t brought you in. You know it as well as I do. Well.” She chuckles. “Maybe not as well as I do.”

He struggles beneath her. “What’re you talking about?”

*

The crossroads demon _tsk!_ s at him. “Sam, Sam, Sam. You need to reframe your line of approach. They did teach you about that at Stanford, didn’t they?”

He smiles without showing his teeth. “You know, if I’d wanted to dance, I’d have brought a stereo.”

“Oo, zing.” She winks at him, like a black-and-white bombshell. Unimpressed, he lifts the rosary, beads clacking. The demon holds up her hands, palms pale. “Whoa now. Okay, cowboy. I’ll give you a question with a little meat on its bones. You wonder why things are going all to hell in this town?” A dimple appears at one corner of her mouth. “Haven’t you wondered why Dean came back into your life just in time for Jess to disappear?”

The expression on Sam’s face provokes a laugh. It doesn’t last long.

*

“Come on, Dean, work with me a little here, would you? Aren’t you curious? Aren’t you bugfuck terrified? Don’t you want to know what it all means? Or are you too comfortable being the good son? Do you like being so complacent and patient and dogged?”

He strains away, but Meg just keeps talking, and it’s like she’s everywhere, all over him, her voice inside him and her body heat seeping through him. “You thought it’d be better with Sam with you, but you can’t tell him, can you. Can’t face up to the thought of being different, of really being a freak. He already ran away from you once, what’s to stop him from doing it again? Of course, the more you worry him, the closer he stays with you, and you like that, don’t you. You like pretending you’ve got a family. If you can’t be normal, well, at least you’ve got that, right?”

He doesn’t know how it happens. His gorge rises and all of a sudden the bedside lamp flies across the room and smashes against her shoulder. She grunts as it knocks her off him and into the gap between his bed and Sam’s. Dean feels the force pinning him to the mattress disappear, just like that, and he rolls off the bed and onto his feet. Meg rises slowly, swiping at the blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. “Very good, Dean,” she says, her grin feral. “You get a cookie. How did that feel?”

“Fuck you,” he snarls, reaching for his gun.

She snorts. “Please.” She raises her hand, and Dean is trapped, pinned motionless against the ugly, fading wallpaper. Meg climbs over the bed and saunters toward him, blood still dribbling down her chin. “Think before you strike, Deano,” she purrs, inches away again. “What have you got that could possibly hurt me?”

*

The woman’s head snaps back, and Sam hears the loud crack of bone as the demon erupts from her open mouth. He rushes forward before he can think it through. His shoe scatters the salt line and the plume of black smoke barrels away. The host crumples to the dirt, limbs limp.

Sam begins running immediately.

 

 **iii. Oh mothers, please tell your children**

As soon as Sam opens the door, Dean grabs his shirt and slams him bodily against the wall.

“I swear to God,” he growls, “if you ever leave me alone like that again I am dumping your ass without the car and finding Dad myself, and Jessica, just to fucking spite you.”

“Jesus!” Sam pushes him away. “Dean, we have to get out of here. Right now.”

“No kidding,” Dean snaps. “A demon attacked me. Here.”

Sam stares. “What?”

“Oh yeah,” Dean says, his smile tight. “Really could have used your backup, buddy.”

Sam jams his fingers into his hair for a moment. “What did it want?”

“Who cares?” Dean turns aside, grabbing his duffle. “Where the hell were you?”

Sam glances toward the door. “I summoned the crossroads demon.”

Dean goes rigid. “You did what?”

Sam circles the beds. “Which is why we have to get out of here.”

“The hell were you thinking?” Dean frowns at him. “What about the case?”

Before Sam can answer, Dean’s phone goes off. It’s the ringtone for a text message. They both stare at it for a moment, jarred. Dean reaches for it and checks the display.

 _Cookies in a minute. Keep up the good work._

The number is unlisted; the ID flashes UNKNOWN.

Sam’s eye falls on the broken ceramic base of the bedside lamp. He picks up a shard, edged with blood, and holds it up. “How’d this happen?”

Sam’s phone rings. They both startle at the sound. Dean’s heart begins pounding afresh. “Pick that up,” he says, all the anger leeched out of his voice.

Sam frowns at him, and at the screen, before he accepts the call and brings the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Sam, that you?”

He freezes. His eyes lock onto Dean’s in the glow of the overhead light.

“Dad?”

Dean’s eyes go wide. “Put him on speaker phone,” he says at once.

“Yeah, Sam, it’s me.” The voice comes through with no fuzz or hiss in the signal. “You boys okay?”

“We’re okay,” Sam says, still staring at Dean.

“Put him on speaker!” Dean growls again, and makes a grab for the cell. “Dad?” he says, receiver pressed to his ear. “That really you?”

“Hey, Dean.” Their father’s soft-spoken rumble hums in the earpiece. Dean’s face shifts, and he punches a button, holding the phone between them.

“Dad, where are you? Are you all right?”

“I’m okay. Glad to hear you boys together. Sam.”

He straightens. “Sir,” he says, his bearing uncertain.

“Listen, I know this has been hard on you, with your girlfriend missing. There’s something we need to talk about, but not over the phone. How soon can you meet me in Oklahoma?”

Dean’s head jerks up. “Tomorrow afternoon,” he interjects, “if we ride like hell.” He meets Sam’s eyes. “Maybe a little later, but we’ll try and hoof it.”

There’s a silence on the other line. Then Dad grunts. “Okay, I’m giving you an address. You got a pen?”

“Yes sir.” Dean takes down a hotel in a town called Guthrie, then nods. “We’ll see you there soon, Dad.”

“Good, good. Look, I know this has been a rough, weird couple of months. But I’ll be able to explain everything when we’re together, all right?”

“All right,” says Dean, as Sam frowns at him.

“Oklahoma isn’t that far,” Sam points out once Dean hangs up.

He pockets the phone. “We’re not going to Oklahoma. Not first.”

“What?” Sam moves to block him. “Why not? We’ve been looking for the man all summer and now here he is! That was him, Dean! What’s the problem?”

Dean throws out his arms. “You tell me, Sam. Demons show up, screw with you, nearly kill me, then Dad calls for the first time in how many months and we’re just supposed to roll with that?” He grabs his duffel again and yanks it open. “I don’t think so. I am not getting caught with my pants down on this one.”

“Wait a minute.” Sam circles to face him. “You’re telling me you think Dad’s possessed.”

Dean drops his sawed-off on top of his dirty clothes. “That’s exactly what I think. And you know something else? Maybe if you hadn’t gone out to try and talk with the damn demons you’d be on your game enough to think of that too.”

A muscle in Sam’s jaw bulges. “I thought we could find out something about Jess.”

“Jess, right, of course.” Dean chuckles, shaking his head. “Hey, at least Dad called us too, right?”

Sam steps over the rest of the broken lamp. “Fine,” he concedes. “If we’re going somewhere else, then where are we going?” He pauses. “Is Bobby Singer still in the business?”

“Nice euphemism,” says Dean. “Yeah, he’s still alive as far as I know. Not sure he’ll help us, though.”

Sam zips his bag. “Dad?”

“I’m amazed that shotgun missed.” Dean hefts his duffle on his shoulder. “I’m thinking Missouri. She’s on the way.” He nods at Sam. “You call her, I think she likes you better.”

*

An unfortunate and inexplicable Egyptian theme pervades the Guthrie Motor Inn. The door knockers are shaped like hieroglyphics. Sam keeps cracking his knuckles as Dean lifts his fist.

“It’s open,” their dad calls from inside. Sam sucks in his breath and glances at Dean. Dean bows his head, steels himself and pushes the door open.

Dad sits on the edge of a bed, his hands clasped. He’s got no weapons on hand: he just watches the door. More gray peppers his beard, but otherwise he looks the same as when he left. He gets to his feet, and Sam closes the door. “Hello, boys,” Dad says, in that quiet rumble of his. He holds up a hand. “Hang on,” he adds, and nods. “Say it.”

“Christo,” says Dean, his back stiff.

Dad smiles. “Good boys.” When he hugs Dean, Dean grips his flannel, staring straight ahead. Sam doesn’t hang back, but he makes no move toward his father either. Dad stops, just outside arm’s reach, and looks at him. “Glad to see you again,” he says, his voice even softer, and turns to Dean. “I’m sorry it’s had to be this way.”

“Yeah,” says Sam, nodding. “Me too.”

“Dad, where have you been?” Dean shifts on his feet. “Why wouldn’t you talk to us?”

Dad looks between them. “Have a seat,” he says, gesturing at the beds and chairs. “There’s a lot I’ve got to tell you.”

“About damn time,” huffs Dean. He doesn’t sit.

“Dean,” says Sam. “Come on, take it easy.”

“Advice from you about him? That’s hilarious.” Dean turns to Dad. “I just hope it’s a damn good story. You left me.”

“I did,” Dad says, all the relief gone from his face. “I’m sorry, Dean. But I had to do it. I was protecting you.”

This time Sam speaks up. “Protecting us? Dad, you sent us hunting.”

“And here you both are,” he interrupts, his frown eagle-eyed. “You want to know where I came from? Indiana. There’s a boy in Lafayette Dean’s age, named Scott Carey. He just checked himself into a psych unit, because dreams he’s been having keep coming to pass.”

The color abruptly leaves Dean’s face. Sam looks at him, startled. Dad raises both eyebrows. “There’s no pussyfooting around this, boys. Scott about had a heart attack when I walked into his room. He told me that soon one of my children was going to kill me.”

“That’s impossible!” Sam insists. Dad keeps his eyes on Dean.

“How you been sleeping, kiddo?” he asks quietly. “Nightmares still bothering you?”

Dean swallows and licks dry lips. “No sir.”

Dad doesn’t raise his voice. “You want to know how I know you’re lying?”

*

So Dean met his first demon at six months old, the same night his mother met her last.

John Winchester’s seen this happen since.

*

Both buckets of KFC chicken are going cold. Dad keeps gnawing at some wings, but Dean and Sam have spent the past hour quiet.

Sam clears his throat. Dean looks up from fiddling with his ring. “So,” Sam says, “Dad, what are you planning to do about this demon?”

Dad lowers his wing. “I’m going to kill it,” he says, quiet and confident.

Dean reaches for a paper napkin. “Kill it? How?”

“Yeah, Dad, what kills a demon?”

“There’s a gun that can do it.” His gaze grows sharp. “Made by Samuel Colt, and carried by hunters when men rode on horseback. My last confirmed sighting was 1952, but I’m closing in on it.” He dips his chin. “The demon knows it too. Him and me have had a merry chase, you could say.” He smiles to himself.

Dean sits back in his seat. “You wanted it tailing you?”

“Yeah. I did.” Dad folds his arms over his chest. “But the game’s changed now. I’d rather have you close, where we can watch each other’s backs. We need to stick together, now more than ever.”

“So that’s it?” Sam balls his fists beneath the table. “Now is when we’re stronger as a family?” He nods, jaw clenched. “Well, that’s convenient.”

Dad’s face darkens. “Sam, you’ve had Dean to help you look for your girlfriend,” he begins.

“Yeah, and maybe if you hadn’t been so busy giving us the runaround, instead of explaining to us that we didn’t have to waste our time, we could have found Jess by now and taken care of this mess already!”

Dad leans forward, resting on his forearms. “You’ve known what it was that made her disappear, Sam. Tell me exactly how you planned on taking care of it.”

Sam throws his arms open. “God, I don’t know, maybe if you’d opened up about your badass gun no one’s ever seen before—”

“You’re not ready!” Dad barks. “You could have been by now, but you took off for three years. This demon is big game, Sam.”

“We’ve seen demons,” Sam snaps.

Dean grunts. “And got our asses handed to us.”

“We could have been helping you!” Sam shouts, standing up. “If you knew this thing was out there, and that it killed Mom you should have told us! You owe us that!”

Sam’s rage is palpable. Dean feels it batter against him with no sign of retreat. The bottom of his stomach drops out: his head swims as Dad rises and begins shouting back. He can’t move to help them or stop them. There’s something close around him that he can’t fend off. Sam and Dad can do this on their own: the fight, the clash, the yelling, the slam of the door.

*

Sam slinks back in an hour later, shoulders hunched and hands tucked deep in his pockets. Dean looks up from cleaning his sawed-off on the bed, but Dad is still reserved, poring over weather reports and ley maps. “I’m sorry.” Sam’s shoulders hitch, and his voice. “I don’t know what happened back there. I just couldn’t control myself.” He takes a deep breath. “It’s just been rough, you know? I didn’t mean any of it.”

After a long moment, Dad nods, and picks up another paper. “Go help your brother,” he says. Sam chastened is docile, and he joins Dean, lowering himself onto the second bed.

“Hey,” he says softly, “you doing okay?”

Dean looks up at him. Something buzzes in his head, like a filament flaring out. “Yeah,” he says, turning back to his work. “I don’t know what that was. It’s gone now.” He lifts an eyebrow. “You?”

Sam glances back at Dad and smiles. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve missed our knockdown drag-outs.”

“That was just for old time’s sake?” Dean shakes his head. “You two are the same goddamn person.”

Sam crooks another smile, then props his elbows on his knees. “So, what’s next?” Dean eyes Sam, then Dad, who runs one hand over his face.

“I’ve been calling around, following leads on the Colt.” He nods. “If I’m not wrong, we could have it in hand by the end of the week.”

“Good.” Sam slips his Beretta from the back of his pants and sets it on the hotel quilt. “Who’re you talking to?”

Dad sets his work down and leans back in his chair. “Caleb’s been a real help. Colt’s gun has always been a sort of a pet project with him. Tanya Wilson out in Salt Lake City’s supposed to know who had it last, but she’s as hard to track down as the damn gun.” He twirls his pen idly. “Couple other people I haven’t tried yet. But we’re close.”

“Yeah, well, we better move fast,” says Dean, setting aside the shotgun. “Dad was telling me about tracking this demon. Wherever it goes there are omens—cattle deaths, electrical storms, and somebody usually dead by the time it moves on.”

“Moves on to what?” Sam knits his brow. “What’s it doing?”

“We don’t know.” Dad sets his pen on the desk. “But it’s doing something. These omens showed up in Salvation, Iowa last week, just before a new mother died in a nursery fire.”

A muscle in Sam’s jaw twitches. “Just like Mom,” he says softly. The line of his spine straightens. “But why? What’s the purpose of killing new moms?”

“Why’s a demon do anything?” says Dean, picking up another sawed-off. “But if we can track it, we can stop it. That’s what matters.”

“But you’ll need the Colt,” Sam points out. “What if it strikes again first?”

John bows his head. “We’ll just have to move fast.”

Sam nods, jaw tight. “And we’re sure this is going to help us find Jess too?”

Dean frowns. The thrum is back, and growing. He squints at Sam’s hand, watching him fiddle with the Beretta.

Dad pauses. “The demon is the reason why Jess is gone,” he says carefully. Sam drops his eyes.

Dean’s hand whips into his jacket pocket. Sam raises a hand and the silver flask of holy water goes skidding across the floor. “We’re pesky like that, aren’t we,” Sam smirks, and faces them with toxic yellow eyes.

Dad and Dean slam against opposite walls of the room. The demon grins, a long, slow thing not suited to Sam’s face, and saunters up to Dad. “Well, well, well, John Winchester, here we are at last. I’ve let you go too long. You stay a thorn in my side and you get cocky.” He taps two fingers against his temple. “Lucky thing we’re quick learners.”

“You son of a bitch!” Dean shouts, straining. “Get out of him! Let him go!”

The demon chuckles, and keeps his attention on Dad. “Sticks and stones, John. Your boys aren’t shy about speaking their minds, are they. If only that kind of openness ran both ways.” He looks between Dad and Dean. “Sam? He’s in here with me. Thanks for making him so easy to jump, by the way: we’ll piggyback on any strong emotion, of course, but anger is the best for really getting in there with a really tight grip.”

“What the hell do you want?” Dad growls. He doesn’t struggle, but his face radiates anger.

The demon splays a hand over its chest. “Let’s not be coy, John. You’ve been on to me for a long time, haven’t you.” He clucks his tongue. “You really should have told your boys the truth when you had the chance. Not that they aren’t going to find out on their own, but they’ll always remember that you kept that from them.”

The yellow eyes flick onto Dean, struggling against the other wall. “Dean, Dean, why make it hard for yourself?” He strolls closer. “You’re coming out this part just fine. I’m not making any promises about your father and brother, though.”

“I’ll ask you myself, you demonic piece of shit,” he snarls. “What the hell do you want with us?”

“Want? My wants are very simple.” The demon leans close. “I want your family off the table. And you, well—” He grins. “Why spoil the surprise? I’ve got plans for you, Dean: nobody likes the kid who reads the end of the book first.”

“You get out of him,” Dean whispers raggedly again. The demon laughs.

“Is that what you’d really like? Okay, Dean, let’s make a deal. I’ll evacuate from dear big brother’s meatsuit if you just show me how well those powers of yours are coming. Oh yes.” His eyes slide back onto Dad. “It’s not just dreams. It hasn’t been for a while now. He hasn’t told you?” He pats Dean on the cheek. “Your little boy’s got big things ahead of him, if he just puts his mind to it.”

“No,” grunts Dean, still straining to escape. He can’t look at Dad’s face. “Not for you.”

The demon pouts. “Come on, Deano, give it the old college try. I’ll even let Daddy dearest go as part of the bargain, how’s that sound? You just flex those muscles of yours and show your stuff.” He steps back and spreads his arms. “Maybe you’ll even shoot me, champ. Whenever you’re ready.”

Dean’s eyes dart onto his father. Dad’s lost control of his expression, terror and disappointment and entreaties swimming in his face. He looks back at the demon, still smirking, and still too patient.

Dean squeezes his eyes shut. Cords strain out in his neck. He bares his teeth, chest heaving: no one speaks. The time is excruciating.

Dean’s sawed-off, eight feet out of his reach, wobbles, then tumbles off the bed. All three track its movement; only the demon smiles as it clatters to the ground.

“Hmm. Brownie points for effort, but you should have taken my girl’s advice: you’ve got some catching-up to do.” He heaves a dramatic sigh. “Oh well. Better luck next time. Sorry, Dad.”

Dad gasps, his eyes suddenly wide. His back arches against the wall. “No!” Dean screams. “God damn you, stop it, no!” The demon is calm, Sam’s face horribly placid.

“You know,” he says, teeth gleaming. “He’s always wanted to do this.”

John Winchester feels everything that comes next.

*

Sam wakes up to a room that smells like pennies. Thin pre-dawn light seeps in around the drawn shades. His gorge rises. He tries to lift his head from the carpet. Every nerve screams in protest. The room is totally quiet.

He coughs: his lungs feel sandblasted. A corpse lies in front of him, feet first. Sam heaves, but nothing comes up. He grips at the carpet, digging his nails into the stain-resistant nubbles, and pushes himself onto his elbows.

Dad is a mess. He’s all over the room. Sam chokes at the sight, and at the blood covering far too much surface area. He rolls onto his back, dizzy, trying to look the other way. Dean is nowhere to be found. His guns are where they fell; Dad’s things are where he left them. Piles of sulfur litter the room.

Someone pounds on the front door. “Hey!” a girl shouts, as the knob twists. She rams herself against the locked door. “Hey, can you hear me? Are you in there? Hey!”

Sam presses himself to the carpet again. The noises don’t stop. Someone’s going to hear her. He fumbles for the nearest gun and pulls himself to his feet. The girl is still pounding when he opens: she catches herself from falling on him. She gasps when she sees him, and her eyes well up. “Oh my God, he already came.” Sam doesn’t put the gun away. She tugs at her oxblood leather jacket. “Look, you don’t know me,” she says, her voice shaking, “but I know where he took him.”

“You what?” Sam says, his grip tightening on the handle.

She nods, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “Yeah. I’ve been dreaming it. This. I can’t really explain it, but I’ll try in the car. We don’t have much time. You have to trust me.”

“Why?” He blocks the doorway, and blocks both of them from what’s inside.

“We don’t have time for this, but okay. If it gets us going.” She swallows, and lifts her eyes to his. “I’m Meg. I know where your brother is.”

 

 **iv. And it’s been the ruin of many**

Dean jerks upright, eyes adrenaline-wide. Dewy grass sticks in mats to his palms. Soft morning sun fills an eggshell blue sky. Dean’s throat is still ragged and tight. He pats down his jacket, but he’s got nothing, not his gun, not even his phone. His father’s blood stains his sleeves and pants. A creek burbles close by; beyond the rise of the bank, he can see the tops of buildings. Dean has a job in front of him. He has to figure out where he is. He pushes himself to his feet and starts away from the creek.

The town is quiet. Every old structure is warped, faded and abandoned. The glass in the windows is dark where it isn’t broken. Dean patrols the streets carefully, acutely aware of how exposed he is. The town square opens up at the next corner. An enormous windmill dominates the open space. Someone is staring at it, arms at his sides. Dean stops in his tracks. “Hey!” he calls out. “Hey!”

The guy turns around. He’s a slight, pale thing, with watery eyes and chapped lips. Though he looks Dean’s age, his hairline is already retreating. He neither moves nor speaks while Dean jogs up to him. “Hey,” he repeats. “What the hell is all this?”

“I don’t know,” the guy says, dispassionate. He nods. “I just woke up in that stable over there.”

Dean’s stomach turns a little. “You don’t remember how you got here?”

The guy doesn’t blink. “Nope.”

“Well,” he says, putting one hand to his chest, “I’m Dean.”

“Max,” he replies, after a moment.

Dean nods. “Max, I’m gonna need your help. You haven’t seen anyone else here, have you?”

He wrinkles his nose, squinting into the early morning sunlight. “Maybe at the window in one of the shops, but I think I was imagining it.”

Dean runs a palm over his face. “Okay, well, we’ve got to get the hell out of here. It’s dangerous to stay.”

Max frowns. “Dangerous?”

“You really think it’s a good idea to stick around?” He starts away from the windmill. “We need to leave, and now is better than sooner.”

“Hello?” They both turn at the new voice. “Hey, is someone out there?”

A girl and a guy emerge from down one of the crooked alleyways. He’s short and bewildered-looking, huddled into a rumpled hemp hoodie; she’s statuesque and dark-haired, a clutch in one manicured hand and a pair of silver high heels in the other.

“Who’re you guys?” says Max from behind Dean’s shoulder.

“I’m Sarah,” says the girl, pushing up a strap on her black dress.

The guy’s eyes focus for the first time. He clutches one elbow and brings a fist up against his mouth. “Andy,” he says, gnawing his thumb. “Not good in a crisis, just warning you.”

Dean weighs his options. “Okay. I’m Dean. This is Max. How long have you guys been here?”

Sarah tucks a limp ringlet behind her ear. “We both just woke up here. I was at a reception at my dad’s art gallery. I was fixing my makeup.”

Dean scrubs his hand over his face again. “No roads nearby, no place to get out?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. And my cell phone won’t pick up a signal. But this sure as hell isn’t Buffalo.”

“Have you guys seen anybody else here?” Sarah and Andy shake their heads, while Max continues to look wary and sullen. Dean turns in the direction he came. “There’s a creek close to here. If we follow that, we’re bound to come to something.”

Max snorts. “What are you, like, an Eagle Scout?”

Dean looks him in the eye. “I’m probably the only one here who knows what we’re dealing with here.”

“What — what would that be, exactly?” Andy asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Dean waves them after him. “We can do this walking.” He turns only to stop dead in his tracks. A tall blonde is approaching, one foot in front of the other, deerlike. She’s wearing skinny jeans, Chuck Taylors and a threadbare t-shirt. Her hair is longer, and tied back; her eyes are lamplight-wide.

Dean feels cold adrenaline jackrabbit under his skin. “Jess?”

All the hesitation vanishes. She runs over to Dean and throws her arms around his neck, her face buried in his shoulder. “Oh my God,” she sobs. Her fingers dig into his back. “Dean,” she whispers. “I can’t even tell you how glad I am to see you.”

“We’ve been looking for you,” he mumbles.

She pulls back, sniffling. “I tried to find you too. I tried—” Her eyes go wide again. “Sam. Dean, where is Sam? Is he okay? Is he here?” She glances over at Max, Andy and Sarah. “What’s going on?”

Sarah nods to herself. “I take it you two know each other.”

Jess wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand. “He’s—yeah, he’s my fiancé’s brother. I’ve only actually met him once, but I’ve heard a lot of stories.” She manages a laugh, and her smile is so sunny Dean suddenly understands why Sam could think of choosing her first.

Andy peers. “You know how you got here?”

Jess runs her fingers through her curls. “No. I just woke up over in that empty shop.”

“I saw you,” says Max suddenly. “That was you.”

Dean frowns a little. “Where _have_ you been?”

“If we’re not leaving, can we eat?” says Sarah. “I’m so hungry I could faint.”

“I found some things,” Jess says. “It’s not much, but it’s edible.”

A shiver rushes up Dean’s spine. “Fine,” he says, pushing it aside. “Let’s get some supplies and then get out of here.” Jess slips her arm through his and turns her face up at him.

“Back here,” she says, and leans into his side. He feels her trembling as they troop through the empty town.

*

“I’m a vegetarian,” Sarah announces, her arms crossed tight over her chest. The shell of a saloon is empty save for one lonely table, on top of which rest packages of gnarled jerky and crackers.

Jess arcs an unimpressed eyebrow. “Are you hungry?” Sarah purses her lips and reaches for the saltines. Dean hangs back and tries not to think about the taste of iron in his mouth.

“So,” says Sarah, brushing crumbs off her evening gown. “How come you two know each other?”

Dean looks up. “What?”

Sarah points between him and Jess. “You two. The three of us don’t know each other. I just think it’s weird.”

Andy eyes her sidelong. “More weird than any of the rest of this?”

“How weird has it been?” Jess takes a deep breath. “For you guys, I mean?” For a moment no one speaks.

Then Andy points at Max. “Do a handstand.”

Max frowns at him. “No.”

Andy stops. “Huh. Um. Okay.” He scratches his nose. “I can make people do things. When I tell them.” He offers another small wave. “I don’t know about you guys.”

“I get visions,” blurts out Jess. “Terrible dreams. I keep seeing people dying.”

“I can move things,” says Max, not meeting anyone’s eye.

Dean exchanges glances with Sarah, who squirms. “I get visions too,” he admits, his stomach curdling.

“Oh my God.” Jess presses a hand to her heart. “I don’t believe it. I thought it was just me.”

Dean frowns. “Did Sam know about this?”

“Why did we all show up here, then?” says Max, eyes still narrowed. His voice crackles over a rough throat.

For some reason, everyone looks at Dean. He swallows. “You’re not going to like it.”

“Yeah,” laughs Andy. “Because we’re doing so great right now anyway.”

He bows his head. “It’s a demon.”

Max snorts. “Give me a break.” But Sarah’s face has drained.

“The man with the yellow eyes?” she whispers, suddenly a lot less brassy. She hugs her elbows again. “He’s come to me a couple times,” she admits, retreating into her shoulders. “He scares the crap out of me.”

Andy’s jaw is dangling. “A demon?” he repeats.

“Yeah.” Dean avoids Jess’s eye.

“Wow.” Andy laughs and throws up his hands. “A _demon?_ Great. Okay, yeah, that’s swell. How do we protect ourselves from a demon in the middle of a ghost town?”

“We get out here,” Dean repeats. “This sonofabitch doesn’t tell us what we do or where we go. Let’s do a pass through the buildings. If you find salt or iron, take it. We move out in half an hour.”

“Salt?” says Max.

Dean scowls. “Is there an echo in here? Just do what I say, and meet back here in half an hour.”

Hesitantly, they split up, Jess lingering only until Dean pushes past her. The less he has to explain about Sam and Dad, the better.

Locusts wail in the fields outside town. Dean moves through the streets with military efficiency. Each house or building turns up a rusty knife here, a fire stoker there. Sarah and Andy are waiting in front of the saloon when he returns. “Dude,” Andy calls out, grinning, and hefts up two sacks of rock salt. Dean manages a smile.

“My favorite condiment.” He hands off two of his findings. “You guys seen Max yet?”

Sarah points past Dean’s shoulder. “He’s coming now.”

Max slouches across the town square, his long sleeves pushed up past his elbows. Angry bruises creep down over his skin, visible even at a distance. He’s carrying another bag of salt, and a fistful of railroad spikes. “That’ll help,” Dean says approvingly. Max keeps his head down as he trudges closer, ignoring Andy’s two thumbs up.

Mid-stride, a spasm wracks his body. He drops what he’s carrying; the railroad spikes scatter and roll in the dust. Andy frowns. “Max?”

Max clutches his chest, eyes wide. Blood begins spurting from his mouth and eyes and nose. “Holy shit!” yells Sarah, recoiling. Andy darts forward, but Max has already pitched face first to the ground, unmoving. Dean runs to his side and pulls him up by the shoulders; he flops limply, dead with hardly a sound. Sarah hangs back with the weapons and the salt, horror-stricken. Andy looks up at Dean, eyes huge.

“What the hell just happened?”

Jess emerges from the general store nearby, balancing a tower of tin cans. The cans scatter when she catches sight of Max and sprints into the street. “Holy shit,” she gasps. Sarah reaches for her, and they cling to each other, staring.

Dean stands up. “Back inside,” he says. “Grab our things and get in there. Lay down lines of salt at every window and every door.”

“Why?” Jess blubbers, hand splayed over her mouth. A bracelet catches in the sunlight, but no diamond. Dean pushes Andy toward the saloon.

“Because it keeps demons out, okay? Just go, do it! I’ll take care of Max.”

Andy scoops up what Max dropped. Sarah and Jess let go of each other and follow him away. Dean hefts Max over his shoulders. Max is already beginning to leak.

*

“I was awake the whole time,” Sam says as they barrel north on the highway. “I saw everything.”

“I’m so sorry,” says Meg, smaller than the dip in the passenger seat. “At least you only had to see it once.”

Sam laughs. It’s not a comforting sound. “Right. Just once.” Meg drops her eyes.

“I’m sorry, that was bad.” Her hair hangs in her face as she shakes her head. “I just… I hate these visions so much. And I thought I’d make this one in time. I’ve never seen it as clearly as for you, Sam.”

“You saw where Dean is?” he interrupts, gripping the wheel.

She bites her lip. “Yeah. Cold Oak, South Dakota. But that’s hundreds of miles.”

“You let me worry about that,” says Sam. The road rumbles beneath them.

*

“I have this awesome, _awesome_ van,” Andy begins, unprompted.

Sarah stops picking rock salt from her nails. “Where’d that come from?” Jess straightens Sarah’s head from behind and continues braiding her long hair.

“Just, you know.” He starts to shrug, then changes his mind halfway through and scratches aimlessly at the back of his head. “Making conversation. I mean, as long we’re holed up here until this demon comes and kills us all.”

“Hey,” says Jess, firm and a little sharp. “Don’t talk like that. We’re all getting out of this just fine.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” says Andy, still smiling, but his voice has something strangled to it. “And where is Max right now again?”

“Hey. Andy.” Dean looks up from laying a salt line across the doorway. “Tell us about your van.”

For a moment Andy looks like he’s going to protest, like he’s reconsidered this reedy bravado thing in favor of just flipping his shit like any normal person, but he swallows and settles back against the wall. “So, like, right after I got my mind control thing? I snagged this awesome van. I wasn’t good enough to get the guy to give it to me, but I did get a sweet deal for it.” Sarah sighs and starts worrying at her manicure again. “I love it, man,” he continues. “It’s got everything I need. The back is all set up with, like, books and things on the wall and stuff. I have a freaking disco ball, man. It’s like, the kind of thing you always say you’re gonna get together while you’re in high school but you can’t, and it’s _great._ But the best part,” he continues, and his voice wavers, low and happy, “is the barbarian queen.”

Now Jess frowns. “The what now?”

Andy bobs his head. “Dude, so there’s this art college a few towns over, right? And I was having some beers with this guy, and we were talking about Barbarella.”

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Dean interjects, grinning.

Andy beams at him. “I know, right? So this guy is like, ‘You know what would be awesome?’” The pitch of his voice drops, and he nails the universal stoner accent. “‘This hot chick in, like, full-on Princess Leia gear, right? And she’s—wait for it—riding a polar bear. On your van.’ And I was like, Dude, you are _so_ right! I didn’t even have to talk him into it!”

“Are you kidding me?” Sarah interrupts. She wrinkles her nose. “That sounds demeaning and ridiculous, not to mention ugly.”

Andy’s face falls. “But it—”

“I hear you, sister.” Jess combs through the loose half of Sarah’s tresses. “I almost did an art minor. Liberal arts solidarity, my friend.”

Sarah tilts her head back. “What did you end up with?”

Jess chuckles. “English, just as useful.”

Dean snorts. “Well, you two enjoy your Picasso and Rembrandt. We cretins will be in this corner discussing the finer things in life.”

“Hey,” pipes up Andy, “I like smart stuff too.” Dean shoots him a look of betrayal. Andy hunches his shoulders. “What? German philosophy. I grew up in Oklahoma, I had to make my own fun.” Sarah rolls her eyes.

Jess glances up at Dean as he lingers over the salt line. She holds a half-completed plait over Sarah’s shoulder. “I got it started. Is it okay if you finish?”

“Yeah,” says Sarah, taking her braid. “Thanks.”

Jess stands up and joins Dean. She edges him out into the hallway, her arms crossed over her chest. “Hey,” she says quietly, “where _is_ Max?”

Dean checks past her shoulder, but no one is listening from the other room. “Out back,” he answers. “If he’s still around here, he’s not getting in.”

Jess frowns. “What do you mean?”

He rolls his shoulders. “Ghosts are born of violent deaths. Maybe he was a nice kid before, I don’t know. But I’m not putting it past him to stick around and take his dying out on us.”

“What?” she says. “We tried to stop it. Why would he be mad at us?”

Dean blinks at her. “Huh,” he says. “I guess ghosts aren’t too big a shock when you know demons are real.”

Jess summons a small smile. “I guess.” She bows her head, still hugging her elbows. “So, this is what you do. You and Sam.”

He huffs, his expression rueful. “What we’ve always done.”

She shakes her head. “I never knew. He never told me.”

Dean shrugs. “First rule of Fight Club: you do not talk about Fight Club.”

She looks up at him. “And what do you really call it?”

He watches her face for a moment. “Hunting,” he says. “We’re called hunters.”

“Hunters,” she says, tasting the word. She knits her brow. “He was a lawyer.”

“He left us to go be a lawyer,” Dean replies. “Sort of like the son of the Bearded Lady skipping the circus to go be a tax accountant.”

Jess shudders. “Hey, I don’t blame him. The way he talked about growing up, always moving around, college through correspondence courses?” She lifts her chin. “He’s brilliant, you know. To get into Stanford on that.” Dean just laughs and looks away. Jess frowns. “He didn’t want it for you,” she says fiercely. “He wanted you to have a home and a life of your own. That’s what he talked about. He talked about _you._ ”

Dean sets his jaw. He keeps his eyes on Andy and Sarah. “Well, he’s a damn good hunter. He’ll find us. I’m sure of it. We’ve just got to take care of ourselves until then.” Jess’s face is strangely impassive. He cants his head. “You do want to see him again, right? It’s been four months.”

She blinks at him, puzzled. “That long?”

Her voice is quite soft.

*

Dean readjusts his hold on his crowbar. He scrubs at his eyes and leans back in his seat. Jess and Andy are dozing in one corner; Sarah is idling by the window, ignoring him. The salt lines are all in place. He’s scratched what sigils and symbols he knows into the wood around them. If the demon is coming for them, they’re as protected as they’re gonna get.

The creaking floorboards are quiet, but he hears them. Every muscle goes stiff, a shot of adrenaline washing through him like whiskey. Dean gets to his feet and stalks toward the door. He steels himself as the steps come closer.

Sam rounds the corner and emerges from the shadows of the hall. Every limb of Dean’s suddenly goes loose. His brother’s name slips from his mouth. He may be twenty-two years old, but he walks right up and throws his arms around him. “Oh my God, I am so glad to see you,” he mumbles into Sam’s shoulder, and he sounds like a freaking girl, all teary and shaking with relief, but it doesn’t matter, because Sam’s here and they’re all going to make it out of this okay.

Sam wraps both arms around him too, and for a moment Dean feels enveloped in his stupid, enormous frame. “Dean,” Sam says, one hand gripping his shoulder tight. “Dean, Dean, Dean.” In that moment, Dean’s eyes shoot open. He wrenches back and gapes at his brother. Sam smiles. His eyes flash poisonous yellow. “Good to see you too, champ. How about you and me stretch our legs. What do you say? You up for a little walk?”

“Get the hell off me,” Dean snarls, stumbling back. “Andy, Sarah, Jess! Get out of here!” The others make no indication that they’ve heard him. The demon wearing Sam’s face chuckles. He swaggers forward, hands in his pockets.

“‘Fraid it’s just you and me, kiddo. Not even you can stay awake forever.”

“Why are you in him?” Dean growls through clenched teeth. “What have you done with him? Where is he?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about Sammy,” says the demon amiably. “I’d worry about you.” He saunters through the room, examining each of the others in turn. “Mm,” he murmurs, approving. “Pretty little Jessica. She’s something, isn’t she?” The grin he wears is lascivious, a look Sam has never worn well. “But enough about them. Let’s talk about you.”

In the blink of an eye, they’re outside in the dusty town street. Dean can see Max’s body on the other side of the creek, even paler in the moonlight. The demon begins strolling, inhaling with deep satisfaction. Dean follows. “What do you want with us?” he demands, his voice harsh against the soft hum of crickets.

“Wrong question again, Dean.” The demon takes a breath, calm and confident. “This is about you. It’s always been about you.”

That stops him. He stares. “Come again?”

The demon turns around, mouth crooked in a half-grin like his own. “I admit, as a spectator sport this is fun for me, but I’m surprised you haven’t caught the deeper purpose here yet.” He tilts his head forward. “Think about it. Your dad did. He knew, all right, but he didn’t see fit to tell you. Probably thought you’d flip out on him — and I think we both know he was right.” He shrugs. “I’d hoped you’d have caught on by now, but never mind, you’ve always been a master at denying the patently obvious. It’s one of your charms.” The demon’s grin twists at the corners of his lips. “Still, this year has been a doozy, hasn’t it? Your burgeoning powers. All these disappearances. More and more demons walking among us. This could be the first day of the rest of your life, if you like.”

“If I like?” Dean glares at him. “You killed my father yesterday, you son of a bitch.”

“I wouldn’t have, you know,” the demon says lazily. “Don’t hog all the pity for yourself. I lost out on that too.” Sam’s lips curl. “Just a little more control from you — how sweet to see you forced to explain that, for him to have to live with full knowledge of his child’s freakish abilities. It would have been beautiful.” He sighs. “You know how much stock you both laid in being normal — well, what am I talking about? All of you did. Sam especially.” The demon chuckles. “The ways you Winchesters come together for us. It’s ballet.”

“Ah.” Dean smiles. “So tutus get you off? That fits.”

The demon snorts. “See, Dean, this is why I like you. It’s good to remember the humor in life. It keeps you sharp.” His face grows serious, and he approaches Dean, who manages to stand his ground. “I need you sharp, Dean,” he says, earnest. “I need you to come out on top.”

His stomach twists. “On top of what?”

“Them, of course.” The demon looks back at the saloon. “Andy’s not much of a threat, true, but oh, those ladies. Maybe you’d want to try both at once, wouldn’t you? That would be pretty sexy.”

“Stop it,” Dean hisses.

“No.” He grins. “No use hiding anything from me, Dean. I know everything there is to know about you. I just don’t know which of you crazy kids is making it out alive tonight.”

“What are you talking about? You’re the one who killed Max.” The demon smirks. Dean’s brow furrows deeper. “You had to be.”

“Guess again!” the demon sing-songs. “Dean, here’s what you have to understand: this isn’t the story of a plucky band of survivors who cooperate and fashion canoes out of hollowed-out logs. I’m putting Darwin to work here. I made lots, but I only need one. I need the best. I want it to be you.”

“Hang on.” Dean circles around to face him. “Made?”

The demon claps him on the arm. “Good listening, Dean. Yes. Here, let me throw you a bone here. Origin stories for 500, please.” He snaps.

*

Dean watches the demon blood drip into his infant mouth. He watches baby Dean frown, and kick, and lick his lips.

It’s the first time he’s ever heard his mother’s voice.

She’s beautiful. And tall. And so fierce.

He watches her bare her teeth at the demon, and struggle as she’s pushed up the wall. His dead father’s voice peals out from downstairs — _Mary! Mary!_

The flames roar on the ceiling. She bleeds through her nightgown. Dean lunges forward, crying for her, _Mom!_

They surface.

*

“On second thought, I shouldn’t have killed him,” the demon allows, studying Dean’s face. “Now you’ve only got one thing left to lose. Still.” He smiles, Sam’s charming, irregular grin. “Supply and demand hard at work here, aren’t they. I’ll be back to check in on you, Dean. You take care of yourself, now.”

He thumps him on the shoulder—

*

“Dean, wake up, wake up!”

His eyes snap open. Sarah is shaking him him. She’s breathing fast. “Dean, I can’t find Jess. What if something’s happened to her? Oh my God.”

“Help me up,” he grunts. She pulls him upright with one hand. “What happened?”

She shakes her head, loose braids swinging. “I don’t know. I was just sitting at the window and when I turned around she was gone. Andy didn’t see her go either. He went off to go look for her, I think. Dean, we’ve got to find her. What if the demon gets her? What do we do?”

He pats his jacket. “Spikes, you got one of those railroad spikes?”

“Yeah,” she says, and hands him one.

“Stay here,” he says. “Be on your guard.” He hurries out.

*

The cry hangs in the air long enough to track it. He finds Jess inside a ruined schoolhouse pressed up against a far wall. Andy lies bloody all over the floor. The lines of his limbs are anguished, and he’s leaking from every orifice. “I don’t know what happened,” she wails. “He found me and then all of a sudden he just—it’s like his heart exploded or something.”

Dean keeps watching her, wary, as she pushes herself to her feet, sliding up against the wall for support. “We have to get out of here,” she whimpers. “We just have to. I can’t take this anymore.”

He studies her, her long hair and her golden tan and the newness of all her clothes. Her empty left hand. He doesn’t move away from the door. “Been here a long time, have you?”

She gapes at him, baffled. “What? Dean, I told you, I showed up just like you did!”

“I mean really.” He cants his head. “We’ve been looking for you for months. We got that one phone call and then nothing. Haven’t you been trying to find us too?”

Her tears have subsided, but the look of silent panic remains. “Dean, I don’t understand. What are you trying to say?”

“You really don’t remember where you’ve been?” He circles Andy’s body, refusing to look down. Jess doesn’t break eye contact either: she lets him stop just out of arm’s reach.

In that moment, the pretense disappears; she shucks it off as carelessly as a husk. “Well played, Dean,” she says calmly.

“Yeah, you too.” He clenches his fist. “Jess, what happened?”

“I kept winning,” she says simply. “Who walks away from a winning game?”

“You had a life,” he insists. “You had _Sam._ ”

“Yes.” She crosses her arms. “But you give some things up. It’s all worth it considering what I’ll have when this is all over.”

“Really?” He stands his ground. “What’s that?” She’s an unknown again, strange and fearsome as anything he’s ever hunted. Her smile is dazzling.

“The heavyweight championship belt, of course. And a pony.” She pauses. “Well. A warhorse, really, but, you know, I’ll take it.” She tosses her head. “I’ve got great things coming, Dean. But you’ve heard the sales pitch already. Did he come to you tonight? He likes when they think there’s a fighting chance. I do too.”

Dean’s mouth twists. “He come to you as Sam too?” His fingers wrap around the iron spike in his pocket. “I think it was so I’d listen to him. Fat chance, since, you know, he killed my mom when I was a baby.”

Her expression is bored. “Can’t make an omelette unless you break a few eggs.”

Across the room, a pair of chairs whip over the floor and smash into the chalkboard. Dean grabs his stomach like he has to hold it together. Jess tracks the path of the chairs, then flicks her eyes back onto him. “Is that it,” she murmurs. “That’s it?” She clucks her tongue. “I should talk with him. There’s nothing for me to do if he sends them so raw.”

She strolls away from Dean before he can recover. “It’s okay, Dean. I know how you feel. It was visions for me too, at first. I saw you come for Sam all week before you showed up. How funny, you scared the bejesus out of me. That was before I came here.” She shakes her head, something nostalgic in her attitude. “I got out by the skin of my teeth that first time. It was just dumb luck. I didn’t know how I did it. And as soon as I did, I blacked out. I came to in a field in Mississippi.”

Dean blinks through a fog of nausea. “You _travel?”_

“I’m like Nightcrawler,” she coos. “But better. Farther. Stronger. Faster.” She leans forward and without a missing a beat plucks the railroad spike from his jacket. “The second time I showed up here, I tried it again right away. But I couldn’t go until I’d gone through with the rest of the kids. Hell of an incentive to make it end quick.” She drops the spike, which clatters to the floor near Andy. “Pretty soon after that, it all sort of… turned into shore leave.” She shrugs. “Spend some time on the road, get some practice in with civilians and then go in for your tour of duty.”

“Well,” Dean pants, “what a good little footsoldier of evil you are. I knew I had no reason to like you.”

Jess laughs, genuinely amused. “More like elite force. You like that trick I pulled in Nebraska? That was pretty neat, you must admit. You should have seen that fill stop go up. The real thing’s going to be so much better.” She blocks the doorway, considering him from above. “It’s kind of a pity we never really got to know each other. But hey, don’t sweat it.” She lifts one hand, wrist bent slightly back. “I’ll catch you on the flip side.”

With one delicate movement, she closes her fist.

Dean’s heart seizes up.

*

The Dakotas are long, and the hours in them are long. Sam and Meg go as fast as the car will take them.

Once she’s explained herself, Meg tries to get Sam talking. He won’t. He just drives. They stop for gas at precise intervals. Sam shoves the nozzle into the hole, metal clanking on metal, and he gives Meg cash to pay while they wait. Same amount, every time: Sam knows the cost of a full tank of gas, and he won’t stop until he’s running on nothing.

*

They haven’t seen another pair of headlights for miles.

“How long were you seeing it?” Sam asks. He glances at Meg. She stares at the flashes of yellow paint whipping backwards under them.

“Stay focused,” she says, eyes hooded. “Watch the road.”

*

“Here,” Meg says. She points, and Sam pulls over. In the small hours of the morning no one feature of the roadside expanse stands out. He steps out of the car and slams the door shut. Meg circles the Impala to join him at the open trunk.

“He’s close?” he asks, choosing his weapon without hesitation.

She nods. The wind moans. “We go on foot from here.”

*

Dean’s last memory isn’t going to be this. No, screw that, struggling for breath and blood and purchase on one knee in front of his brother’s cheerfully demonic fiancée in some dump in the middle of nowhere. Dean chooses not to let his life end this way.

*

Dean is four and he understands that he is as old as Sam was when Mommy died and the thought terrifies him, that his brother will now live a life in which he has had a mother for less time than he hasn’t, and there’s no going back on that, not ever. Sam is eight and Dean is four and Sam will always always be taller than him and Dean doesn’t want to be crying but he is, he can’t stop it, and he’s not good with words, not like Sam is, so he can’t make the words come out right, and pretty soon he’s hitting things, bashing his shoes by their laces up against the wall of their scummy apartment and Sam grabs him by the shoulders and just holds him until he goes still. How did he know how to do that? How did he know that was what Dean needed? Dean’s breath hitches and he can feel his chest tightening again, but it’s relief, it’s his brother, and he grips Sam’s t-shirt with wet fingers.

“Don’t be stupid,” Sam says, and keeps on hugging him.

*

He hates that he’s dying like this. He struggles to hold his head up. Jess just watches him. He feels the ruptures in his chest, the blood churning beneath his breastbone and surging up through his throat—

Sarah’s manicured hands grip Jess’s jaw from behind. The crack of her neck goes off like cannon fire.

Dean catches himself on his hands, coughing and spitting blood to the dusty floorboards. Jess lies crumpled on the floor in front of him, face turned out at an unnatural angle.

Sarah backs up against the wall and turns aside to throw up.

“Thanks,” Dean rasps, clutching his ribs as he stands. Sarah begins to hyperventilate.

*

“We have to get in there,” Sam says to Meg. Light is leeching into the edges of the sky, crazed with the dark branches of trees.

*

“We have to get out of here,” Dean says, on his feet again. He claps Sarah on the shoulder and pushes her away. She stumbles, looking backward at Jess, but he tugs her toward him. She grips his sleeve, not watching where they’re going. “We should have done this right at the start,” he pants as they hurry into the street.

Sarah slips out of his grasp and shuffles to a halt. Dean turns and looks at her. “Sarah, we’ve got no time left. Are you coming?”

She swallows. “I heard everything she said. She couldn’t leave until everyone else was dead.”

“Sarah, she was _crazy!_ Come on!” He reaches for her again, but this time she steps out of his grasp, more confident, holding her ground in her slinky black dress.

“He didn’t come to you like he did to me,” she says. “I’m sorry, Dean. He told me things.”

He frowns. “Yeah, so did Mr. Rogers. Doesn’t mean they’re true.”

Sarah shakes her head. Her black braids are coming undone. “You’re right. We are wasting time.” She curls her fist uncertainly, barefoot in the dust.

Dean pauses, gauging the moment. She just saved him from Jessica, she’s never killed anyone before, she’s under a lot of stress for a civilian. He lifts both palms up and takes a few steps toward her.

She shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says softly.

Her right hook catches him on the jaw, and _damn,_ that girl can throw a punch.

*

“There’s someone in here!” cries Meg. She glances back over her shoulder as she sprints into the schoolhouse. Sam runs after her, only to find her crouched by a body.

Golden hair fans out around Jess’s face. Her eyes are still open. “Dean’s been here,” Meg says. She looks up. “She’s still warm.”

Sam stares. His grip on his gun loosens. His brows knit. Meg rolls Jess over.

Sam’s head snaps up. His knuckles are white. “Did you hear that?”

*

Sarah’s the strongest thing he’s ever gone up against, but Dean has training, and the fight is matched. They’re brutal, and he plays as dirty as he ever has. Wood splinters, gravel flies: he has no time to think, he just _fights._ Inside him, something is roiling to be let loose, but he won’t, he _won’t,_ he just keeps swinging and kicking and slamming like his father taught him.

*

The street is ravaged in the wake of their fight. Sam tears toward the girl and Dean, Meg on his heels. “Dean!” he yells.

The girl wears a hunted, furious expression. For one instant, Dean turns. Blood streams from his nose and mouth.

The girl kicks out. Her heel connects with the small of Dean's back. His eyes go wide, fixed on Sam: it’s the last thing he does before she snaps his neck backward, and he crumples to the ground.

*

Sam doesn’t think. He takes aim, and he shoots.

The girl vanishes before the bullet hits.

The streets are quiet again.

Sam has no idea what happens after he falls to his knees and pulls Dean into his lap.

 

 ** _Bridge:_ Oh there is a house**

Dean wakes to a sound like the whole prairie is swarming with locusts. His pillow is thin and lumpy, and the sheets smell like summer-burned grass.

“Hey! You up yet?”

He jerks upright at the pounding on his door. “I’m up, I’m up!” he shouts, not entirely sure what he’s shouting about or to whom.

The doorknob twists and a thin face framed with sheets of blonde hair pokes in. “About time. My mom says you can’t stay in bed all day.”

The details come swimming back. Dean scrubs at his eyes and swings his legs over the side of the mattress. “Tell her I’m coming.”

Jo doesn’t leave. In fact, she slips into Dean’s room and leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest. He squints blearily at her. “You’re not leaving.” His voice is like something dragged over gravel.

Jo’s mouth quirks. “Buddy, this wasn’t a courtesy call. You’re helping me with the repairs on the shed, remember?”

“Am I?” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Right, right.” The silence stretches as he doesn’t move. Jo sighs.

“Gosh, don’t move so quick, Dean, you might throw a shoulder out.”

“Give me a break, I haven’t—” He pauses, and glares. “I just need some coffee,” he grumbles. He runs his fingers through his hair and stifles a yawn. His mouth tastes terrible.

Jo picks herself up and opens the door wide. “All right. Come and find me when you’re ready.” He grunts, and she smirks and leaves him be.

Dean sits in the dim room, listening to the drone of insects outside. The drowsy tranquility unsettles him. The past few days are crazed with dark patches. He remembers being bundled into the Impala, and Sam not speaking all the way to Oklahoma. He burned his father, the grief threaded harsh and hot through his body, and then Sam brought them back to Nebraska.

The mattress here is all springs. Dean groans and pushes himself to his feet. A few minutes later and he’s dressed and wandering into the bar. Ellen looks up from behind the counter. “Morning, sunshine,” she says, drying a row of mismatched tumblers. “It’s two in the afternoon.”

“It’s 8 AM somewhere,” he retorts, offering an unconvincing smile. “Where’s Sam?”

Ellen rolls her shoulders. “He went out a while ago, said not to worry. Can I get you something, sweetie?”

Dean pauses, and watches Ellen. She watches him right back. “I don’t feel like I’ve properly thanked you for putting us up,” he says, dropping his eyes to the well-shined counter.

“Don’t you even start,” she says brusquely. “It’s what’s got to be done.” She turns aside. “Coffee’s been sitting a while. Can I interest you anyway?”

“I’ll drink anything,” he says, leaning against the bar but not taking a chair. “So Jo came and woke me up.”

“You did agree to help.” Ellen pours into a faded mug bearing the logo for the Museum of the Mountain Man. She smirks. “She’s not exactly Hulk Hogan, and it’s not like Ash is up for heavy lifting.”

The coffee is bitter, but he takes it black and lets the taste pierce him. “Yeah, but Sam’s the sasquatch, even if he is a lawyer.”

Something uneasy sits in Dean’s stomach, and it’s not the dregs. He pushes the mug away and thanks Ellen. “Jo’s already clearing the shed,” she says as he turns to leave.

Outside is just as hot and still as he’d suspected. Waves of insect noises rise and fall in all different directions. Dean circles the roadhouse. The past month has been unforgiving to this part of Nebraska; more days like this and it’ll be an unqualified drought. He’s not eager to stay and watch. He’s not eager to stay for anything. It’s been how many days since Jess and Sarah and the others? Why Sam was insisting they stay here was beyond him when they had a demon to find.

“I don’t believe it.” The voice carries on the deathly calm of the air. Dean stops in his tracks and presses himself behind the corner of the building. He knows that voice. “A week? Not even you can keep this up.”

“I have to,” says Sam, and Dean’s whole chest clenches. “He can’t know.”

“He’s your brother,” the female voice says. “You’re not going to be able to control this.” Sam is silent. “I know how badly you want to find that Colt, but just because hunters pass through here doesn’t mean you’ll get what you want out of them.”

“Then where?” he snaps. “I have a year.”

“I know,” she coos. “You really don’t think three heads are better than two?”

“If this is going to mean anything, I need that gun. You said you could help me find it. So I’m talking with you. What more do you want?”

“Good question,” says Dean, stepping out from behind the corner. Sam tenses up, eyes wide. Meg just turns slowly and grins.

“Why hello, Dean. So nice to see you again.”

“She’s a demon, Sam,” he growls. “That’s Meg.”

“I know,” Sam starts, holding up his palms.

“You _know?”_

“Ah ah ah,” she interrupts, lips still curled in that feline smile. “I wouldn’t go yelling for Ellen Harvelle yet. Why don’t we all discuss this like civilized people? After a manner of speaking, of course.”

“What are you doing here?” he snarls, moving closer.

“Dean—”

“It’s like I told you,” she says, keeping her eyes on his. “I’m here to help.”

“I don’t know what sort of _help_ we would need from a demon.”

“Don’t you? You’ve already had it. Why stop now?” She laughs at the twinge of confusion on Dean’s face. Behind her shoulder, Sam stands with his arms at his sides, looking pained. “Come on, Sam, why don’t you tell him?”

Sam opens his mouth, but nothing comes out yet. Dean’s feet are rooted in the hard baked dust. Meg stands between them, eyes gleaming with delight, and smiles.

*

When Sam Winchester was four years old, his mom died in a fire. His dad rushed out of his new brother’s room, shoved the baby into his arms, and ran back inside.

Sam held Dean so tight because he thought he might drop him. He got out the front door and waited on the front lawn, the smell of fresh-cut grass mixing with the burning house.

“Don’t worry, Dean,” he said, standing there alone with him. “I’ll get you out of this.”


End file.
